


Pushups for Harrow

by Measured_Words



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Canon-Typical Sass, Gen, Harrowhark's noodle arms, Life in the River, Lyctoral Nonsense, Pining, Reunions, Weird Necromancy Shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:54:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29098362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/pseuds/Measured_Words
Summary: Gideon takes a detour on her way out of the river, and winds up in the River Bubble.
Relationships: Gideon Nav & Palamedes Sextus
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Pushups for Harrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Silvereye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvereye/gifts).



Gideon stumbled backwards out of the River. Whirling around, for a moment she thought she was back in Canaan House, in Fake Dulcinea's sickroom. Except there was Camilla Hect, trashy romance novel spilling out of her lap as she leapt to her feet and reached for her swords.

She paused before drawing them. "Reverend Daughter?"

"Nope," she said, realizing that she was just entirely fucking soaked. The filmy opalescent robes were clingy and restricting and cold. She also noticed that Hect's eyes were the beautiful clear cool grey that belonged to Palamades Sextus.

"Ninth."

Definitely Hect. "I mean, we're both Ninth, technically." She shrugged and started wringing out the filmy white fabric. "So, where in the, uh, hopefully not literally, but HELL are we? How are you here?"

"How did you get here?" Camilla countered. "Where's your necromancer?"

Gideon nearly gave up and ditched the robes, except Harrow would faint dead away if most people saw her body with less than seventeen layers of nonsense, and ugh. Harrow's face paint had all washed off in the river, and that would upset her more than anything else. "Great questions," she answered instead. "I have no fucking clue. But you, Sixth, can please just give me some little crumb of what the fuck."

"Palamades made this place to keep his spirit in when he died. So It’s a bubble in the River, and we're using it as a base of operations."

Gideon's brain took a minute to process, looking around. She had so many questions right now, many of them even about what was happening here as opposed to the chaos she'd just left. "And where is he, then?"

Camilla sighed and dropped down onto the little pillow covered couch that Cytherea the First had pretended to be dying on. "Out in the world, taking care of… something. But really – how did you get here, and what's happened to the Reverend Daughter?"

Lacking anywhere else to sit and too disgruntled to stand, Gideon grabbed a cushion and dropped down onto the floor. She spread out her sodden robes as best she could, hoping maybe they might dry some. "Some asshole stabbed her, and suddenly I was driving. Then there was a bunch of Lyctor nonsense and some... let's say family drama, and I got dumped in the River and washed up here. I don't know where she is."

Camilla did not look satisfied at her concise summary, and just said, "He's going to want to talk to you."

"Oh, goody," Gideon retorted, and then sat up as Camilla flopped back onto the couch and apparently passed out. "Shit."

She scrabbled over to the couch to try and bring her around, or demand some new answers for this further what-the-fuckery, but by the time she made it there, Camilla was gone, and sitting up from the couch was instead, Palamades Sextus. Hect's eyes rendered his face to something entirely forgettable, which was a shame. He shook his head as though to clear it, then looked over at her.

"Nav! It really is you! That's fantastic."

"Is it though?" She squinted dubiously and resettled on her damp cushion. "Things do not feel fantastic."

"Well, they're not ideal, maybe, but they're better now. So, tell me what happened?"

Gideon considered. Harrow probably wouldn't trust him but Harrow barely even trusted herself, or anyone else. There was way-above-her-head shit going on, and she didn't know how to find Harrow. Palamedes Sextus was the kind of guy who liked to solve problems just because he could and was generally not a total dick. "Okay so," she began, some saints tried to murder my dad, and also my dad is, I guess, the Emperor."

"Did they succeed?" 

"Awww man – I'd been hoping for *some* kind of reaction." Gideon huffed. "And no, but only because Ianthe intervened. No idea where they've fucked off to. No idea how I wound up here, either."

"I only put some of it together just now," he admitted, "But I've had suspicions for a while – Since Harrowhark was here. And, not to sound rude – but it explains Cytherea's interest."

"Fuck you."

Palamades ignored this, which was really only sensible, because he was probably right. Knowing what she did about the Lyctors' tangled sex webs really didn't help. He continued. "Plus, we've been… let's say 'in contact' with the Blood of Eden, and some of their records were…suggestive."

"Yeah. Their ex-leader was my mom, which you probably knew, and her revenant was haunting my sword." The sword she still had with her. It was still heavy as fuck with Harrow's wimpy arms. If she was going to be stuck in this body a while – well, it was gonna be push-ups for Harrow.

"I did not know that, but that also explains what happened when Harrow visited."

"Yeah. She also tried to do a lot of murders. But what's your deal here? Are you a revenant?"

"Yes and no. It's more complicated than that."

"Okay – and please understand, Doctor Sex Pal, that I am not gonna get any fancy necrononsense you spew at me, so use your smallest words."

He sighed. "Okay. You know the part of the Lyctoral process where you use your cavalier as a battery?"

And did she ever. That was the shittiest of the trials they'd completed. 

"And the part where they die?"

"Ooof, man. Yes."

"I didn't want to do that to Cam. So, I found another way, that involves this place."

"So – you died instead? Is she a Lyctor? Are you a semi-Lyctor, too then? Is this where real cavaliers go when they're not fighting heralds?"

"Yes, in a way, in another way, and I don't think so. There's a time element to becoming a real Lyctor. I'm not sure exactly what Nonagesimus was thinking with her particular approach, but I'm hoping it's saved you both."

"Pft." Gideon scowled. "She was thinking she didn't want to be stuck with a shitty second- rate cavalier, that's what. I did my best and now I've just absconded with her body."

"I don't think that's true, Nav," he said in that gentle way he had of being brutally honest. It didn't have quite the same effect with Camilla Hect's browny-green eyes, which were fine but unexceptional. "She didn't want to put you through the process any more than I wanted to do it to Cam."

"She didn't have to forget I existed just to do that. And I was still there. It was shitty, watching her go through all this bullshit, and not being able to do anything except watch her bleed out her ears anytime someone mentioned me."

"That sounds difficult. The months I was separated from Camilla were awful. We both hated it. And I can't imagine how it would have felt if I thought she'd abandoned me. We endured it because we knew it had purpose. There are things that are just beginning to happen that could change so much of the world we know, and I would like to see both of you as part of them. I think it can happen. But I'm not going to tell you that what you went through was justified, or that you're being self-indulgent either."

"Good." Her earlier words had come out unbidden. Maybe it was just nice to talk to someone who could hear her after so long, not to be alone with her thoughts. Gideon Nav wouldn’t have been her top choice for an isolation partner, that's for sure. Now she leaned into the flippancy, away from the feelings.

"Yes," he answered, apparently having gotten the memo about dropping the subject, "because I have something self-indulgent to ask you."

"I'm not exactly in a position to be granting any favours here, Sixth. Again – not even my body." If he was asking her, he had to be pretty desperate.

"Well, in this case you are. I just need you to stay here, for a little bit."

"What, just hang out here with you? It isn't like I have anywhere to be, or anyway to get there."

"Not with me. Just you. The bubble needs a soul inside it to maintain its integrity, or it fails."

"So you do have somewhere to be, huh?"

"Since we worked this out, it has only ever been me or Cam here, Gideon. And it's risky for us both to be here too."

"So…. this is a booty call?"

He pushed his glasses back up on his face, definitely not to hide a blush. Did dead people blush? Did they need glasses? So many questions she'd never cared about were being answered right in front of her face. "It's not like that."

"Sure, man. You haven't seen her in how long? I just mean. It's been a while. It could be like that."

"I'll leave that to your imagination," he said dryly. "But will you do it?"

"Do I really have an option?" It was only a half-serious question – she needed to get her head together before floundering around anymore, and this seemed like it might give her some breathing space.

"You could just leave. Just walk out of here back into the River."

"Ugh. Right." No thank you, evil. "If I stay for a bit will you try and help me?"

"Of course I will. I do want to help you find Harrow."

Gideon grinned. "But first you're going to a different bone town!"

"Nav, please."

"I don't know what *you* have planned, Pal, but that cavalier of yours had the look of a hungry woman. I'm just saying."

Palamades took his glasses off to rub the bridge of his nose. "Just because you want to… to be crude, 'bone' your necromancer doesn’t mean every cavalier does. Or that Cam does."

Her grin widened. This was fun. "I'll make you a bet?"

"No. But thank you for staying," he added, desperately trying to drag the conversation away from more interesting topics. "Time passes differently here, but hopefully it won't seem like too long. I'm afraid there's not too much here to keep you occupied."

"I grew up in the Ninth." She tapped the sword. "I've got plenty to keep me occupied."

"Okay then," he said, and like Hect had, he fell backward onto the couch. Unlike her, he just completely disappeared, leaving her alone, again, but with some space to think. Or not.

She looked at the no-longer-haunted sword. She looked at Harrow's scrawny arms.

In the back of her mind Palamades' words were swirling around – about how Harrow hadn't wanted her to be destroyed, was trying to protect her, even if she was being typically shitty and Harrowhark about it. She didn't know if she believed it. Maybe? 

The thoughts could swirl, for now – she wasn't going anywhere until one of the Sixth got back. What she did know was that if she wanted to get better at this…whatever kind of cavalier she was, then Harrow was going to have to work with her, whether she wanted to or not. It was pushups time.


End file.
